


If You're Able

by Gilded_Pleasure



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, F/F, Homophobia, Other, PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:57:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4805312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Pleasure/pseuds/Gilded_Pleasure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl's betrayal takes a terrible toll on Garnet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Pearl's gem made a sickening _crack_ as it collided with the hard stone.

Sugilite felt Amethyst and Garnet (Ruby and Sapphire) flinch as the nauseating conflict of satisfied fury and horrified disgust tore through her.

She remembered

_the anticipation_

_the sheer hunger_

_the ecstasy_

The betrayal.

The violation.

The rage.

 _We won't regret it_ whispered a part of her

 _Kill her kill her kill her_ replied another

 _She's better off_ wailed the third.

Rose's child began to scream. An impossible fusion; miracle born of ( _made_ of)  love. Rose had found something worthy even in Pearl's jealous, petty, and deceitful heart...as did Steven, who had been Rose.

Sugilite found the will to hold herself together failing, her urge for destruction only fueling her own dissolution. As Amethyst became herself, Garnet felt her say _Our son too, mine and yours_. _We can fix what she did._

Amethyst, who had _wanted_ just as badly, but would never resort to deceit. Sugilite had felt it too; her guilt for also wanting what Pearl had stolen. If Garnet had had more strength, she would have tried to reassure Amethyst as she pulled away but that, too, had been taken from her.

Garnet's legs shook under her as she formed, glowed, nearly blinded by her own light and the flickering, sickened echoes of the love that created her. Ruby and Sapphire blinked into existence for a moment before the practiced interlacing of their extremities shaped them almost-automatically back into Garnet. What a human might term “muscle memory”.

But Garnet's muscles, like her body, were an illusion.

As she strode into the desert night, Steven's sobs and Amethyst's soft murmurs danced in her ears unheard, and she considered, _so too is my strength_.

* * *

Sapphire stared dully at Ruby's back as she heaved and shook. The worst part about her sight was knowing this had to be gotten through, and wishing with dread that it could all just be over with. Done and finished, but it never really was, was it? How useless.

She flowed forward, put her small hand on Ruby's muscular shoulder.

“This part will be over soon.”

Ruby shook her off angrily, tears evaporating suddenly as the heat Sapphire craved radiated in waves. “Why do you always say the same thing? Do you really think you're _helping_?”

Sapphire pursed her full lips against the expected pain. It was always more poignant than anticipated.

She agreed with Ruby, which only made her angrier than she already was. Ruby wasn't done of course, and Sapphire tried to relax as her lover continued.

“How could you _not know_? Pearl was...something is wrong with her. How could you not have expected this? What's the point of seeing ahead if you can't stop this from hurting us?”

“What's the point of _anything_ , Ruby?” Sapphire replied dully.

Ruby spun around, and really looked at Sapph for the first time since they'd stopped walking, stopped fighting against giving in to the recoil, and retreated back into themselves. Ruby recognized the grim set of Sapphire's mouth, the blank despair in her voice. She stepped forward and took her lover's face in her hands, caressed her cheeks lightly with her thumbs.

“Garnet will know,” she rasped softly.

“This isn't where it ends. It just keeps going and going, until it doesn't anymore,” Sapph replied.

Ruby smiled tightly in response, and whispered, “I don't care,” with triumphantly raised eyebrows.

“I know,” Sapphire replied in a softer tone. “I know you don't.”

Sapphire arranged herself on the stony ground, Ruby's head in her lap. They gazed into the night together, watching silver-plated coyotes make their leggy way across the sparely beautiful landscape. Sapph was distracted from torturing herself with inevitable future conflicts and their possible outcomes by folding Ruby's springy hair into a human style she'd been fond of a few thousand years ago, rolled back under her hairband and tucked there meticulously by Sapph's narrow, gloved fingers. A sudden glow from behind them cast their shadows long across the desert, sending the formerly curious coyotes running. Ruby huffed a moment in realization that Garnet had managed to walk herself rather near one of the warp pads that was too far for a human, or even a half-human, to walk from effectively to the communications hub.

 _Sapphy knew she'd come. She always knows._ Ruby was too distracted by the gentle, coaxing fingers in her hair to make an argument out of Sapphire's foresight, for once, and she remained silent as Amethyst sat herself solidly beside them, although at respectful distance.

The moon had lengthened their shadows perceptibly when Sapphire had finished with Ruby's hair and finally murmured softly, “Go ahead.”

Amethyst sighed heavily and began, “'I left Steven with Greg for now. He doesn't really understand what he saw, and I didn't really...” she shuddered.

“Anyhow, I got her patched up with the vial from Rose's fountain I've been carrying around since we got it working again.” She scrubbed the back of her neck self-consciously as she gave Sapphire a sidelong look. “I don't have as much of a deathwish as you think, you know.” Ruby grunted a laugh, but Sapph only ran her fingers through the stony desert soil as Amethyst continued.

“I'm mad at her, too. I hope you know that. And...I'm sorry. Even after what Pearl did, I still wanted to form Sugilite.”

Sapphire fondled a smallish round stone, considered, then lifted it to her lips and rolled it around in her mouth. Her teeth broke it suddenly with a satisfying crunch, and she chewed and swallowed before licking her lips and replying evenly, “You chose to defend her intentions, at that time. A poor decision.”

“Garnet likes being Sugilite more than she cares to admit,” Ruby ameliorated, handing up another stone for Sapphire without looking at either of them. Sapphire crunched away thoughtfully for a moment before adding, “She just doesn't like losing control. But _you've_ changed, Amethyst. Sugilite is different, now, too.”

Amethyst took a deep breath and replied, “Does that mean that she-”

“ _No_ ,” came the emphatic and unison response.

“What can I do to help?” Amethyst asked after a few moments.

Ruby buried her head in Sapphire's cool, silent lap and mumbled, “Nothing.”

Amethyst rose wordlessly and walked back to the warp pad. Her eyes lingered on the distraught couple for some time before whispering, “That doesn't mean I can't try,” as she disappeared in a bright flash of light.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst realizes that Garnet doesn't have anyone to talk to, either.

Garnet gritted her teeth as she came apart...again.

But she was still there, together.

Still Garnet.

As the glow from the warp stream faded, Garnet quickly took stock of the house built onto the temple, eves darting furtively behind their concealment. Steven's room, but he wasn't there. No one was.

She sank down to sit on the edge of the warp pad, fingers creeping under her visor-like shades to rub at her sore, tired eyes. She kept having these moments, times when she felt as though she was coming apart at the seams, but she didn't unfuse. Her hands came down and her fingers surreptitiously checked her palms for cracks or inclusions in her gems-but they were fine, as they had been for decades. She hadn't so much as chipped a gem since Rose had been with them, still. They were fine. Garnet was fine.

Wasn't she?

She felt as rush of resentment for a moment as she considered how everyone on the team continued to look up to her, waiting until she wasn't “angry” anymore. As if this was up to her to fix, as if her anger had caused this, as if _she_ was responsible for the aura of tension and terrible miasma of discord that permeated the temple. As if she could, with a wave of a begemmed hand, somehow dispel it with her forgiveness.

Garnet had been tricked, and she wondered how it had been so easy. She should have known, she could see that something had been wrong with Pearl for a long time. Maybe even before Rose had left them. But it had gotten worse, much worse, and she should have seen this coming. Maybe Garnet had been tricked because Jasper had been right, and Garnet was a trick herself. A trick to make herself believe that she was comprised only of Ruby and Sapphire's _strengths_ , and-

The slam of the screen door interrupted her thoughts, as Amethyst sauntered into the temple and froze as she saw Garnet's slumped, defeated posture. Garnet hastily unclasped her hands, where her fingers had been running across her faceted palms over and over, searching for cracks. Searching for some answer to why she felt this way, how she _could_ feel this way.

For the first time, Garnet didn't love herself, didn't _trust_ herself, and she didn't know how she remained together.

Amethyst trotted up before she had a chance to say anything, and inspected her palms carefully before looking across at her. With Garnet seated, they were nearly the same height.

“You okay, G?” she rasped softly, still holding both of Garnet's hands in hers, having ascertained that her gems remained whole and unblemished.

Garnet said nothing.

“You wanna go somewhere?”

“Where's Steven?” Garnet asked in lieu of a reply.

Amethyst grinned. “Him and Connie went back to that game place. I think they fixed the one you punched that time, and Connie wanted to see if she could beat him or something. We spent the whole day yesterday looking for those coin things on the beach or whatever, you should have seen how much sand I can-! Well, forget it.”

Her grin slipped, and she said uncertainly, “Is it okay if I ask you something?”

Garnet didn't know. Rather than answering, she stood and walked back onto the warp pad. Amethyst eyed her carefully, then joined her before activating it to her specifications.

* * *

Hot sand blew against Garnet's face pleasantly as the glow faded once again. Amethyst had taken them nearly to the other side of the planet, a warp pad near the edge of a tiny oasis in the desert. A fading oasis, from the look of it. Date palms scraggled forth with few fruit to show for their efforts, and she could see that the shallow depression in the sand that had caused them to flourish was drying up. The temperature of the sand and of the air itself was probably too extreme for humans to tolerate for much time at all. Indeed, she didn't see much life in evidence, other than an insect or two and what appeared to be a fennec fox napping under a half-tumbled cairn of rocks. Other than the purple gem beside her, of course.

Garnet enjoyed walking in the dry heat, and so she began to. Amethyst ambled amiably beside her, although she did take the opportunity to peep in at the fox, who looked down its nose at her crossly before giving an odd bark, sending the incorrigible gem cackling back to Garnet's side. As they continued on Amethyst slowly sobered, her brow creasing as they strode the sand.

“Sorry, G,” she mumbled finally. “Sorry I pushed you to talk to her. I didn't realize.”

A few minuted of Garnet's silence passed before Amethyst continued.

“I've been hanging out with Vidalia again,” she sighed, and Garnet took a moment to try and place the name with a face before giving up. She had always had difficulty sorting humans, their insistence on being so numerous and so... so staunchly _individual_ about everything surpassing her ability to interact with them effectively, at least without feeling vaguely embarrassed for the duration. They always expected grand proclamations and powerful gestures. Well, maybe. At least providing them made it easier for Garnet to control the script.

Amethyst smiled up at her in understanding.

“She used to be a friend of Greg's; it doesn't really matter. She's _my_ friend, anyways, and I've been talking to her about what's been going on. I didn't have anyone to talk to, and she's the one who helped me figure out that you...well, you _really_ don't have anyone to talk to, right?”

She frowned a moment, then amended, “Well, except yourself. How have Ruby and Sapphire been doing, anyhow?”

Garnet strode on a bit faster, confused by the question. It seemed as though an accurate assessment was impossible, and too much had happened to really know for sure. Her hands came together, began searching for cracks that weren't there, didn't exist.

Amethyst took her hand to slow her down a bit, and stop her fingers' fruitless search. She tilted her head up to peer into her face gently and clarified, “I mean, what have they been up to?”

Garnet sighed and reported, “The mine's been causing problems again, so I split up to get further down without disturbing the area.” Instead of punching her way through the solid bedrock, possibly causing an earthquake and dislodging even more corrupted gems, she meant. Sometimes a team worked better for reconnaissance and targeted removal, especially when they were both small.

“Well,” Amethyst replied, “do they ever do anything, y'know, for fun? To blow off steam, or is it just all missions, all the time?”

“Hmmm,” Garnet considered, smiling slightly. “Sometimes I go to Mask Island to make sure none of those invisible gems Steven told us about have reappeared, and Ruby and Sapphire like it there, too. We train, and there's a few nice active lava vents for Ruby to stay in practice. Sometimes we play that human game Rose liked so much, or go swimming to look at those weird smiling fish.”

Amethyst frowned comically, screwing up her face in consternation. “I didn't know Rose played that many-” she interrupted herself with an incredulous crow, “Are you talking about _sex_?!”

Garnet blushed and kept walking silently. Amethyst was uncomfortably humanlike in her interests and reactions, sometimes. She supposed it was understandable, considering she had been made here on Earth, so few of the conventions of gem society had really rubbed off on her. Nor had the politeness or reserve of (many) humans for that matter; she really was a somewhat feral product of this planet. Rose had always loved that about her, too.

Amethyst kept going, because of course she did.

“Have _you_ ever tried it, Garnet?” she asked, swinging their joined hands and grinning like Steven's Lion. “I mean, like, with someone else.”

Garnet stopped walking.

Amethyst's face fell, and she took back her hand self-consciously, rubbing it on her thigh as if to cleanse its imposition. “Sorry, I wasn't trying to....sorry.”

“Have _you_?” Garnet asked, nonplussed.

Amethyst scrubbed the back of her neck and looked away. “Well, yeah,” she mumbled.

Garnet chewed on that revelation a moment, then turned to face back the way they came. The small oasis was still visible just on the horizon, and she sighed and made her way back towards it, glancing down at Amethyst to see if she followed.

She did.

Garnet glanced down at the shock of whitish-purple hair that flowed like a banner behind the smaller gem's progress, and asked absently, “Why did you want us to come here?”

“I don't know,” came the automated-sounding response. Amethyst gave a small sigh as she seemed to hear herself, and then rubbed her upper arm as she elaborated, “Smoky Quartz used to come here.”

Garnet grunted in surprise.

“What business did Rose have in the middle of this desert? The corrupted gems were cleared out centuries ago, and there aren't even any humans here.”

“There used to be some,” Amethyst replied cheerfully. “There sure were when we dug that big ol honkin' _hole_!” She bounced on her toes a bit, and pointed towards the small stand of sad-looking palms.

“Rose dug a hole here?” Garnet mused.

“Naw, Smoky Quartz did! Well, Rose asked me to come with her to dig some holes, because she needed them bigger than even she could make them, and why wouldn't I? You like punchin'; I like diggin'” she finished in a satisfied tone.

As they came up on the little depression in the ground, Garnet knelt and thrust her hand into the sandy soil there. There was a coolness to it that implied depth.

_Water._

“This was a well,” she smiled, looking up at Amethyst through her shades.

“Ohhhhh,” Amethyst replied. “There isn't any water here anymore, though. Maybe we can fix it?”

Garnet adjusted her glasses and considered that. “I don't think so,” she answered. “It's too far underground. I could do it, but it would take a long time.”

“But...Rose _wanted_ it here. Shouldn't we, I don't know, keep it how she liked it?” Amethyst creased her brow, then looked at Garnet hopefully.

Guilt edged in on Garnet's good ( _good!_ ) mood. She wanted to keep Rose's things nice, too. Some of them they had been letting go for years, because it was just too painful to dig through the memories. That was how the debacle at Rose's Fountain had ended up nearly allowing Amethyst's injury to... Well. That _hadn't happened_ , Garnet reminded herself, and Ruby's concrete pragmatism once again triumphed over Sapphire's anxieties. But maybe it was time to try harder to honor the memory of Rose, instead of avoiding the pain it caused sometimes. Unfortunately, repairing the well right now just wasn't going to be feasible.

“It would take days. I don't want to leave Steven alone for that long.” _With Pearl_ , was the unspoken addendum.

Amethyst's mouth twisted, then her expression cleared, although her voice was cautious.

“Sugilite could do it in an hour.”

Garnet's mouth twisted. “Sugilite only knows how to _destroy_. And hurt people. She can't _create_ anything,” she finished bitterly.

Amethyst's eyes filled with offended tears as she approached.

“You _know_ that's not true. Even Sapphire said that Sugilite's changed.”

The sun was going down here, and the shadows cast by the palms reached like eternal fingers across the sand. It would still be afternoon in Beach City, and Connie and Steven would be gone for hours yet. Playing and laughing, they were “blowing off steam”. Garnet smiled; she liked that idiom.

Garnet touched her glasses, and they vanished into a few sparkling motes of the light she was made of, before she reabsorbed them. She looked nakedly up at Amethyst from where she still hunkered on her heels, in the small depression that was all that was left of Rose's well. Perhaps she had just wanted to create some life in such a barren place, an oasis of flora and fauna to greet her at the warp pad.

“I don't like to lose control,” she said quietly, knowing she echoed Ruby's words. Acknowledging her own insecurities as well as Amethyst's.

Amethyst smiled, eyes still wet. “there's no one to hurt here, even if you do. If _we_ do,” she amended, and held out her hand. “If we want to.”

Garnet took the proffered hand, and heaved herself up. Then she backed up, putting the small depression between them as she struck a pose, preparing for their dance.

Amethyst grinned as they circled each other around the former well, swaying her hips in enticement. Garnet felt her heart lifting as she synchronized her movements and felt her body buzzing with enthusiasm and light, felt her vision glow not with the threat of splitting apart, but of rejoining and opening to become even more. Amethyst had many flaws, but deceit had never been her nature. They were joined by mutual purpose-repair Rose's well and honor her memory. Fix something, instead of breaking it. Garnet was ready, and Amethyst leaped towards her and inside her. Sugilite stood to her full height just as the sun touched the horizon.

She stretched, and then blinked down as a yapping noise reached her ears. On the ground (so far below!), a small whitish-furred animal growled and barked up at her. The fennec fox had been roused from its den under the cairn by their fusion.

Sugilite leaned down, and picked up the tiny fox from where it yapped and nipped at their feet. It was smaller than one of her finger joints, almost bacterial in its relative importance and sheer power. Sugilite could have crushed it with barely a thought.

Their eyes filled as they recalled Rose's voice: _Each life here is unique, precious beyond anything I've ever seen before. How can anything else matter, next to this?_

She set the fox down, feeling more comfortable in her skin with every passing moment. The fox ran away, then arced in a circle around the oasis, kicking up sand furiously and letting out the most remarkably silly, ululating cry Sugilite had ever heard.

She threw back her head and laughed without restraint, and watched the fox disappear over a dune.

Sugilite began to dig.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot's presence stirs up some unpleasant memories.

_Wait, wait, you-you need me! I'm the only one who knows about the Cluster, you insufferable half-form traitor mega-clods!_

***

Garnet hated Peridot.

Perhaps it was unbecoming, even admitting it to herself (which was of course a more meaningful process to Garnet specifically than it might have been to another, more singular individual), but it was a fact, nevertheless. Every word slung through the bathroom door needled her further, poking at the insecurities that Ruby and Sapphire still carried with them, and pushing Garnet over the edge into a protective wrath. She owed no loyalty to this interloper, and as she had learned all too recently, those who felt loyalty to her, or _should_ have, perhaps took a looser interpretation of what exactly that meant than she herself ever could.

The Gems, including Steven, had been conspiring together in the kitchen where the angular green Homeworld Gem, Peridot, could not hear them through the solid oak door that sealed off the bathroom. She made a mental note to thank Greg the next time she saw him for insisting on such sturdy building materials for Steven's room when they had added it onto the original Temple building.

Pearl, showing at least a modicum of tact, had taken herself back to her room to “look up” something about Peridots she remembered seeing in her records, leaving Garnet and Amethyst to watch over a lightly snoring Steven, who'd finally fallen out over the counter before being carried up to bed in Garnet's capable embrace.

“I don't even know what half the shit she said means,” whispered Amethyst quietly, from where she'd leaned her head along her arm, outstretched over the counter, shifting slightly on her stool. “Seriously, what's with that _clods_ thing she keeps calling us? Is it some kind of Homeworld biz?”

Garnet's mouth quirked downward slightly, and in lieu of a reply, she squatted down to get a loaf pan from the cupboard under the counters. There were a great deal of overripe bananas in a bowl she'd spied earlier, and Steven would of course need something for breakfast. Steven's food supply needed to be replenished incredibly frequently, rapid spoilage being a facet of its organic nature. She'd learned to cope. Although she wasn't inclined towards the towering confections that Pearl was fond of creating from her carefully measured and sifted mile-long recipes, Garnet needed no recipes to throw together a quickbread. Amethyst's edged, tense smile warmed to sincerity as she noticed what Garnet was up to.

“There'll be plenty,” Garnet said as Ame drew breath to ask her question, and the smile became a grin.

“Before the war, we knew of many planets used by Homeworld to grow more gems,” Garnet began, and Amethyst's grin slipped a little. “Dozens of Kindergartens, until there was nothing left in the soil, the stone, even the molten or frozen cores. Ruby and Sapphire didn't know much about it, they had...other purposes,” she _hmm_ ed, prevaricating, and then, “but we did know that sometimes the readings from the instruments weren't accurate, and new gems were planted where the environment couldn't sustain their development.”

Garnet stirred the crushed bananas together with the butter and sugar, creating a liquid with a heady, almost alcoholic aroma. She was casting about for words that would make sense to Amethyst, who'd never seen Homeworld, who was nearly entirely of Earth despite not being native to it. Her grin had slid off entirely to be replaced with a sour twist.

“The seeds planted there don't become gems,” Garnet continued. “They're just lumps of rock, to be left behind in search of more fertile ground. Kindergartners like Peridot call them clods, or clumps, or ruder names.” Garnet left off those, as well as how the term was applied in the vernacular for expendable infantry who could be easily abandoned in various military tactics used by Homeworld. Or had been, thousand of years ago.

Amethyst scowled. “So... _that's_ what she's calling us? Is that what she actually thinks we are? What she thinks _I am_?” Her voice was rising, and Steven, upstairs, snorted and rolled over.

_No_ , Garnet thought, _She was talking about_ you _when she said 'half-form'. An insult, but not what she really believes. She was calling you what Homeworld gems say_ Sapphire _is, just to get a rise out of you_ , _thinking you would know what she meant_ , but she only held out a spoonful of batter towards Amethyst and said, firmly, “No. Those aren't _gems_ , and they don't have forms.”

Peridot would never see Sapphire; not if Garnet had any say in it.

Amethyst looked conflicted for a moment, but she accepted Garnet's offering with a crunch. She even left enough of the spoon to get on with the stirring. Garnet respected the other gem's struggles with her identity and the circumstances of her origin, but she was glad to see her mollified instead of reacting angrily or stomping off. In a way, she envied Amethyst's ability to express her anger freely, rather than second-guessing herself, questioning whether she was only feeding stereotypes about the reckless, violent, or indulgent nature of fusions. She bitterly regretted how much she had shied away from becoming Sugilite, and allowed that reaction to push her towards the illusory comfort of Pearl's caution and Sardonyx's self-control. Amethyst's open demeanor, even her anger, reminded her that Rose really had created a better place for them all, here on Earth. Garnet began to add the dry ingredients, relying on her future vision to tell her when there was enough to form a perfect balance, the same way she relied on her fingers to hold the spoon as she stirred.

“Peridot is holding something back, but she's desperate now, and she's going to spill it,” Garnet continued. “There's nowhere for her to go, and there's something else she's more afraid of than us. Although she is very afraid of us, as she should be,” she remarked, and shared a wolflike grin with her companion.

Amethyst flipped her long hair back over her shoulder.

“Well, let's face it, we're pretty intimidating, G! I was sure you were gonna bust that door down and poof her all over again, for a minute there.” Ame frowned again at that.

“Wait, was there something she said about _you_? Something about you being...”

Garnet turned around, staring into the bowl gripped between her hands.

_Overheard whispers around the encampments, even among Rose's allies. Whispers, snickers, obscene gestures when they thought Garnet couldn't see them. Even Pearl, to Rose: “B-but isn't it sort of...inappropriate? Her just walking around like that all the time? It's so...indulgent.” Rose's warm laughter. “My proper Pearl, always the ascetic. You weren't complaining yesterday when Rainbow Quartz took out an entire flanking regiment with her.”_

_Embarrassed silence, then, “That's different! I mean, I'm grateful you allow me to share your victories with you, it's very...” She cleared her throat hurriedly. “I mean, it's not as if you couldn't have done it as well yourself.”_

“ _You should know that's not true,” came the soft, intimate reply. “You make all of those victories possible.”_

_Garnet had fled, to the halls and the whispers and the snide remarks behind cupped hands that Rainbow Quartz would never stick around long enough to hear. “Does she think she's still fighting?” “I hope she doesn't punch us into dust.” “Look out, here comes Garnet, don't make her angry!” “Some kind of Perma-Fusion!” “Watch where you're going, you reckless combat tank!”_

“ _Filthy War Machine!”_

Garnet had a flash of the bowl shattering in her hands, all her work going to waste. She loosened her grip before that happened, taking a deep breath. Breathing was good. She poured the batter slowly into the loaf pan and put it into the oven, before turning around to face Amethyst impassively.

“Nothing that gem has to say can hurt _my_ feelings. I just don't like her saying those things in front of Steven.”

Pearl's door opened, and the slender gem came back from her research with her arms full of books, managing to catch the tail end of the conversation.

“I found-what? Oh, yes, that Peridot is even more foul-mouthed than Amethyst, isn't she?” She looked smug for a moment, but she glanced at Garnet and the superior look fell off her face quickly.

Years of routine had been able to reestablish themselves after Pearl had stopped her sickeningly servile and transparently self-absorbed behavior. The actual capture of Peridot had distracted from some of the tension in the household, and now that Steven had released her, they had a task to focus on together. Pearl hadn't brought up the injuries she'd suffered at Sugilite's hands, and it was just as well, since Garnet wasn't sorry for it. Not even a little.

“I think she needs a muzzle more than a leash,” Garnet deadpanned, and Pearl and Amethyst grinned broadly at the idea. “I'm sure I'll find one if she can't learn her manners.” Garnet cracked a small, tight smile herself, and prompted, “So, what did you find, Pearl?”

Pearl looked proud for a moment, then sheepish, and finally just cracked a book and began her lecture. “Well, as you can see, this Peridot most likely performed the bulk of the daily monitoring functions for Kindergartens, with some small authority to enact decisions based on her own judgement...”

Garnet listened to Pearl's information with half an ear, ruminating on the shift in team dynamics literally overnight. Peridot was such an immediate and visceral reminder of everything she loathed about Homeworld, and it made the company of even Pearl significantly more bearable. Their captive was helpless without her technological enhancements, or so she seemed, and appeared to know almost nothing about her environment. Whatever information she was holding back would be disclosed soon enough, it was inevitable. The Crystal Gems had work to do. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl had done what was needed for millennia, and they could focus on the task in front of them for today.

As the sun rose and the smell of baking banana bread filled the temple, she heard the sleepy stirring of the boy who'd come so unexpectedly into their care. Whatever happened, she knew that Steven's instincts would remain sound. Even though he lacked experience in nearly every situation, they did well to heed him.

Even when it led to having a terrified, obnoxious bigot tearing apart their bathroom.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet takes Steven on a Mission.

Steven rolled the lump of diamond between his fingers, frowning as it shone dully.

“Garnet, do you ever wonder if these stones can be people, too?”

Garnet looked over from where she squatted in the loose, rocky soil, and narrowed her eyes behind her reflective visor. “No, these are rocks. They're not people, or gems. They aren't alive.”

Steven put the dusty-looking stone in one of his novelty carriers. Part of the reason she'd invited him along on this “mission”, if it could even be called that, was so that he could utilize his new carrier in the shape of a hot dog. After the incident with The Slinker ruining Steven's special Taking It Out of The Box video, Garnet wanted to give the boy a chance to use his new Whacker Sack for something important. Gathering raw materials for the drill Pearl and Peridot were building was necessary if tedious work, and this seemed a perfect chance to spend some time with Steven. Garnet sighed in mild annoyance, wondering if the other Crystal Gems would ever reach a point where they could remember that Steven needed care and attention, even when there was a crisis happening. Especially then.

Human children were not like gems. Garnet had paid close attention to what Rose had told them all about what would happen when Steven arrived, but she'd paid even more attention to what Greg had told them afterward, and her in particular.

 _He doesn't know anything, Garnet_ , he'd whispered quietly as Steven slept in his lap. _Humans aren't like gems. We're born helpless, and we have to take care of each other. The stronger we are, the more responsibility we have to help out everyone else._

Garnet smiled over toward Steven, who was fumbling around at the edge of the large geologic depression that had filled in the center with water.

“Garnet, can you help me with this one? It's stuck!”

Garnet stood and walked over to where the boy was struggling to get a grasp on a rather large protrusion of yellowish stone, and leaned down to snap the smaller, whitish diamond off the chunk of kimberlite it was embedded in. She rolled it between her fingers contemplatively, then looked down at her young companion's anticipatory grin.

“Good job, Steven,” she intoned. “A few more like this and we'll be done in no time.”

He squirmed happily under her approval, then frowned again at the lump of stone.

“Maybe they're like...like animals? Animals are kind of like people, except they're not.”

Garnet considered that for a moment, then popped the small nugget of rock into her mouth, crunching it between her teeth as Steven let out a melodramatic gasp of objection.

“Animals aren't people, Steven. Besides, _you're_ the one who eats animals, not me,” she continued, squatting down and gently nudging at his ribs with a finger. His largely symbolic disgruntlement turned to a giggle immediately, and he crowed, “That's not true! I saw you eat a piece of bacon once! I even-! Whee!” His giggles continued as she tossed him up, caught him neatly and sat him on her hip, before leaping down fifteen feet or so into the depression.

Garnet moved Steven onto her head to carry him as she traversed the dangerously uneven terrain closer to the water, as she had done since he was very, very small. The addition of the partially full hot dog carrier made little difference to bearing the weight, which was ultimately negligible to her, even now that he was older (and bigger). She continued to answer his inane patter with monosyllables or sympathetic noises, as her mind wandered back to when she first saw Steven, still a toddler, put a small plastic figure meant to represent another human ( _a doll_ , Greg had elaborated), onto his head in mimicry of Garnet herself.

She remembered the wave of emotions that had overtaken her then, watching the tiny half-human gem hold the doll on his head with his hands as he stomped through a pile he'd created of brightly colored wooden blocks, kicking at them and laughing loudly at the mess he was creating. Later, as his human coordination improved, he continued the habit of carrying small objects balanced on his head, especially when his hands were full. Her heart leaped whenever she recognized him mirroring her behavior, feelings she never could have imagined were possible before Earth. Before Rose.

“You're so strong, Garnet,” Steven marveled from his perch. Garnet came up out of her reverie, and considered that for a moment. She had just tossed a medium sized boulder from her path, and it had landed midway into the body of water that had formed in the depression they were working their way around. The splash had been impressive.

“I'm as strong as I need to be,” she replied evenly.

“To protect me,” he agreed absently, taking the smaller stone she handed up to him and chucking it as far out toward the water as he could. It landed near the edge of the pond, making a loud _ker-PLOP_ noise.

“Will I be as strong as you? When I'm all grown, I mean?”

“You're already strong, Steven,” Garnet replied, taking him off his well-cushioned perch and tucking his small, sweaty body under her arm as she leaped acrobatically, navigating a downward slope full of loose rocks. Then she set him down near the low, dark opening she'd spotted at the bottom of it, and put her hands on his shoulders.

“Exactly as strong as you should be,” she finished with a small, encouraging smile.

He blushed at the praise, looking away, and then noticed the small crack in the rock that the slope had half-hidden. Steven had something he wanted to say, and Garnet had seen how to provide the opportunity. The hole that led into the side wall of the pit was only a few feet high, and Steven squinted at it doubtfully.

“Are we going in there?” He glanced up at Garnet and then back at the cave. “I don't think you'll fit...”

Garnet smiled triumphantly.

“I guess we'll just have to pretend it's your birthday,” she remarked, and felt her gems begin to glow.

Steven was nonplussed a moment before he understood and gasped in delight, stars in his eyes as Garnet shone and shimmered, and Ruby and Sapphire appeared before him, holding hands.

“Hi, Steven!” they said in unison.

“Oh!,” Steven exclaimed happily, hands to his face. “Hi, Ruby, hi, Sapphire. Well, now we'll all fit!”

Ruby extended her other hand out toward Steven, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it.

“Sapphire will go first,” she said with a smile.

They formed a sort of sideways queue as they made their way into the cave. Sapphire held a begemmed hand out before them, and as the light behind them dimmed, a blue glow suffused the somewhat close sides of the cave as they made their way forward slowly.

“Sapphire,” Steven ventured hesitantly, “can you see okay?”

Ruby laughed and rasped softly, “She can see better than either of us, Steven. That's why she's in the front.”

“Oh...right, future vision,” he sighed wistfully. “Wait, does that mean...why am _I_ the caboose?”

Sapphire's dispassionately musical tones floated back toward them. “He means in the back, like on a train.”

Ruby gushed, “Well, that's so we have someone to guard our backs! You know, in case we get attacked by a gem monster or something.” Ruby's teeth gleamed a moment in Sapphire's blue glow as she grinned back at him, her small hand holding his casually but firmly, making sure he didn't slip. It was interesting to Steven how much smaller Ruby's hand was than Garnet's, but he could feel the strength in it, too.

“That's not going to happen,” Sapphire chimed superciliously from the front.

Ruby chuckled wickedly. “Well, maybe Sapphire should be looking out for a _goose_ attack...”

“Don't you _dare_ ,” Sapphire shot back, with a chuckle she couldn't quite suppress in her voice. “Anyways, we're here, so you can let go of his hand now,” she finished and the narrow passage led out into a small, low hollow under the earth. As they went further inside, they noticed that the walls and even the floor sparkled dimly in the light from Sapphire's gem. Ruby added hers to the glow as well.

“Some of these are quartzite, but there are a lot of diamonds, too. Over here,” Sapphire indicated a spot close to the floor, and Steven and Ruby hunched down to pull at them.

“Wow,” Steven commented, “we're going to end up with a full hot dog after this.” He pulled at a stone half-buried in yellowish sediment, and it came away easily for him. “Maybe I am getting stronger!”

“You're doing great, kiddo,” Ruby murmured hoarsely, her heart swelling with pride and love as she subtly shifted the increasing weight of the Wacky Sack to her own shoulder. She held it open for Sapphire, who let several large stones fall into it from her tiny, white-gloved hand. Ruby couldn't resist taking it for a moment between her own, caressing the stainless not-fabric and smiling into her lover's shadowed face for a moment.

“Oof!”

They turned as one to witness Steven falling over as the large chunk of rock he'd been pulling at suddenly gave way, and a rather large slab that had come with it fell over with him. Ruby rushed over to put him to rights, and he muttered, “I'm okay, it's fine.” He grinned over at Sapphire as he lurched up and blurted, “I guess I shouldn't take my strength for GRANITE, right? Eh?” Sapphire rubbed the side of her forehead wearily at Steven's waggling eyebrows as Ruby began to chuckle. It didn't even make sense, but she felt a traitorous smile creeping across her full lips despite herself.

* * *

Sapphire listened to Steven munch his way happily through the slightly flattened sandwich he'd brought along on their mission. Ruby wanted to see how far she could toss small stones into the water that filled the depression, which now lay in shadow as the sun moved away from the center of the afternoon sky. They sat on a large, flat rock embedded firmly in the scree; a good vantage point from which to view Ruby switch from throwing for distance, to figuring out how many times she could skip a rock over the surface of the pond. After having bounced it an impressive 8 times, Ruby turned back to confirm that they had witnessed her triumph, and then headed back over to rejoin them on their stony perch.

“Do you want a bite of my sandwich?” he offered as Ruby approached, laughing.

“Nope! I'm good,” she sighed, and came to wrap her arm around Sapph casually.

“Well, this is an animal sandwich, not a rock sandwich, so I suppose I can understand,” he sighed archly, chomping another large bite.

“Ha!” Ruby crowed, wiggling Sapphy's shoulders gently. “This is the one that chews rocks, not me.”

Sapphire blushed, but smiled. “I don't mind it, though” Ruby finished with a tender glance into the blue gem's downcast eye.

Steven finished chewing the last bite thoughtfully, then swallowed and said, “I'm sorry I yelled at you guys, before.”

“It's okay, Steven,” Sapphire replied, but Ruby asked, “What do you mean? When?”

“Keystone. When we were on vacation.” He looked down, and sighed, “I just hate it when you guys fight. But it's still not okay to yell. So, I'm sorry.”

Ruby and Sapphire looked at each other, then Ruby shifted over to sit beside Steven and put a hand on his shoulder.

“It's really okay, Steven. Sometimes...sometimes people have problems, and it doesn't have anything to do with you. But they can still affect you, and maybe we should have thought of that.”

Steven frowned down at his hands, then spoke again. “I know it wasn't my fault. But I guess...I wanted you to know that it's not Garnet's fault, either.”

Ruby shot a surprised glance at Sapphire, then stood up and muttered, “What do you mean?”

Steven opened his mouth, then yawned hugely instead. He looked surprised, then elaborated as he curled up on the recently vacated flat rock, his head pillowed on the sack of small stones like a beanbag.

“What Pearl did,” he murmured softly. “No one ever thinks their friends would lie to them. Pearl needs to get better, so she and Garnet can be friends again. But none of that's Garnet's fault.”

He blinked up at them sleepily, then closed his eyes. “I think it's Stevie's naptime,” he sighed rather formally, then followed it up with a snore.

Ruby looked down at him, at a bit of a loss. She glanced up at Sapphire, feeling a welter of emotions she felt unsure of, that threatened to overwhelm. She opened her mouth, but ended up saying, “Isn't he past the point where he supposed to take afternoon naps?”

Sapph smiled and replied quietly, “You're the one who likes to sleep. I've seen you nap worse places...and at a lot worse times, too.”

Ruby snorted like cloth ripping, then quieted herself to whisper, “He's so much like Rose, sometimes.”

Sapphire floated over, and extended her hand to Ruby. “It's like an instinct he operates on. Maybe he was just trying to give us some time alone.”

Ruby grinned and took it, and they headed out toward the lake, talking quietly, but they stayed within earshot of Steven's snores. Half an hour later, Garnet shouldered the hot dog full of diamonds, picked up her child's sleeping form without disturbing him, and began to walk north.

* * *

“Wake up, Steven.”

The child in Garnet's arms muttered a moment before opening his eyes, and he blinked hard to clear his vision.

“Whoooooooa,” he exhaled as she set him on his feet.

The body of water before them was carpeted with a seething blanket of pink. The air was filled with surging noise, and the late afternoon sun shimmered and broke on the surface of the water, barely visible underneath all that pinkness. As he looked, part of the carpet listed up, and broke into a flurry of motes that shot into the sky, then dipped back down to be reabsorbed into the mass they'd emerged from.

“What _is_ this?” Steven breathed, wonderment overtaking his small, round face.

“Flamingoes,” Garnet replied.

Steven gaped, awestruck at the vista laid out before him.

“They remind me of your mother,” she added after a moment.

“They're _birds_?” he almost squealed. “There's so many!” He tilted his head back, watching a few more of the pink-tinted avians take to the sky, then looked back up at her.

“Can we go closer? I want to see what they look like!”

“Only if you promise not to eat any,” she joked, and Steven groaned, “ _Gar_ -neeet!”, rolling his eyes as he took her outstretched hand. Then he paused halfway through his step forward, looking down at the bag of diamonds that lay on the ground near them.

“The Whacker Sack will be fine here,” Garnet reassured.

He laughed and tugged on her hand. “It's _Wacky_ Sack, not _Whacker_ Sack,” he chortled as they trundled towards the waterline together. As they approached, the outlines of individual birds became clearer, and Steven was quite impressed by their overlapping, black-tipped beaks and gangling legs. She enjoyed his way of describing them, even though she had seen this sight many times. It was still one of her favorites, and bringing Steven was like seeing it again for the first time. The birds eyeballed them as they drew closer, but in such great numbers, individual humans or gems held very little threat. Despite this, the birds at the edge of the massive sea of flamingos began inching away from them, reforming and reconfiguring as a strange non-flamingo splashed out into the water.

“Be careful, Steven,” Garnet called, even though she knew that no harm could befall him in this adventure, not as long as she was there. _Kids need to play_ , Greg had said, and that was something Garnet had always understood. He waded out a bit further, but the water level remained no more than knee-deep for almost a half a mile, and she waded out behind him.

“They're really beautiful!” he called over his shoulder, “and funny! They take themselves very seriously!”

On impulse, he splashed happily toward them, and gave a great whoop as they surged upwards before settling back down, almost like a fresh sheet being flipped out and over a bed. A few birds looked over their shoulders at him, flipping their wings fastidiously. One of two darted their beaks into the water, then made gobbling motions.

Garnet laughed loudly, then splashed up toward them herself. “Yah!” she yelled, and Steven whooped again as he watched the birds heave and move away like a single, massive organism. This was much better than watching that ridiculous cartoon show he loved so much, although she dutifully took her turns watching with him. More like Steven Tag...maybe this was flamingo tag! She stomped about a bit, making bird noises and flapping. He ran over to her, and they joined hands to slosh forward together and circle around the birds, herding them this way and that.

“I'm nooot touchiiing youuu!!” Steven taunted as they ran forward, watching several of the birds nearest them unfurl their wings and begin to lift away from the water. “Garnet!” he shouted breathlessly. “They're going to fly!” He screamed in delight and exhilaration as what must have been several hundred flamingos took flight and soared almost directly above their heads and over them in a squawking, flapping roar of dripping water and wingbeats. Garnet grabbed Steven around the waist and lifted him up, then swung him around for momentum before tossing him high in the air.

“You're a flamingo!” she called as she let go, and caught him as he descended.

It seemed as though they had touched off a chain reaction, and more of the birds took to the sky in fits and starts after the first initial wave. They wheeled around the sun, flaming pink and orange near the horizon, underwings flashing bright pink and black-edged, forming mysterious patterns in relation to each other on instinct, before being drawn inevitably back to the whole they had emerged from. They settled on the far side of the long, shallow lake, the forward edge of the mass of birds being only a few yards further away despite the mass exodus.

The water calmed slowly, and Rhodochrosite peered down into the now-reflective surface of the lake, which seemed suddenly much more shallow than it had. Four eyes goggled in wonder at her vibrant pink face, the rounded square shape surrounded by a tidy and massive mane of heavy, smoothly twisted locs. She felt blood ( _blood!_ ) rise to her cheeks as she bent her long, plump arm to touch her nose, a smallish button that was slightly upturned, but she was distracted by the dusky pink cabochon on her palm. Both palms, as it turned out.

_Both?_

_Only two?_

Where a second set of arms and hands could have been, or might have been, two hugely elegant and heavily feathered wings grew instead, terminating in darkly purple primaries that reached out to frame the sun behind her. She felt hesitant, anxious. Who was she? Should she even really be here at all? She squatted down towards the water to get a closer look, narrowing her eyes through the big, star-shaped lenses over them.

“I'm _not_ Rhodochrosite,” she whispered, leaning down further. “I'm...”

One of her fat locs slid over her shoulder and hit the surface of the water with a splash, fragmenting her reflection. The birds had drifted closer during her inspection, and one of them honked rudely at the splash her hair had made. She grinned quickly, mischieviously.

Her anxiety forgotten, she stood to her full height and yelled, “I'm a FLAMINGO!!!!” and barreled toward them, arms out and feet stomping recklessly (carefully) and happily (indulgently) through the water, as if it were a puddle on a rainy day.

This time when the flamingos flew, Starnet joined them.

 


End file.
